Boats
by EatADickClark
Summary: Stranded in the middle of the ocean, Jaune, Pyrrah, Ruby, and Blake attempt to name a boat.


Oceans are big. They are big, endless expanses of water. Home to millions of creatures, they are truly magnificent things to behold. At least, they are when read about in books or seen on television.

When you're stranded in the middle one in a little dingy: not nearly as worthy of awe and admiration. This is the situation we find half of both team RWBY and team JNPR. Pyrrah and Ruby on one boat, and Juane and Blake on the other boat. If you could even call them that. At most they were just collection of driftwood that was gathered and thrown together on the day of an inspection, in a lame attempt to meet safety standards.

Ruby was the only one of the four who took the time observe her boat beyond the initial, 'these will sink before the day is out', reaction they all had when they got into them. Bored, she made an effort to look at every aspect of her boat, in an attempt to kill time. She was done in about 30 seconds.

"Pyrrah," she asked, "aren't boats supposed to have names?"

"Yes, they usually do," Pyrrah answered. She hardly gave the question any thought, as she was still going over plans in her head as to how they could get out of this mess. Still, she added, "I would hardly think this vessel is worthy of name, Ruby. Actually, I don't I'd even consider a boat..."

"But isn't it good luck to name boats?," Ruby asked. "Maybe if we carve a name into the side of the boat, we'll get rescued sooner! Right?"

"Uhm..." Pyrrah, who had been making no progress with any of her potential plans, only took Ruby's suggestion into consideration because at most it would kill some time. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt. What do you think we could name the boat?"

"Huh." Rub put a moment of thought toward thinking of name. "I don't know. Oh! Let's ask Juane and Blake!"

A small distance away from their boat, Juane and Blake floated lazily in their own vessel. The two were close enough that the passengers could hear each other if they yelled. And Ruby did just this.

"BLAKE! JUANE," she yelled, "Let's name our boats!"

Juane, who had falled asleep, was startled awake by the yelling from the other boat. As he got up to see what the noise was about, he glanced over to Blake. Blake looked like she hadn't moved since the last time Juane had looked at her. Juane thought was a little odd, then immediately forgot about it as he turned his attention back to the yelling.

"Hey!," he heard Ruby shout in the distance, "Let's name our boats!"

He considered her suggestion before looking on the side of his boat to the place where a name would be written, and noticed that his had already been christened with an elegant moniker: The SS Boat. He had only a moment of disappointment at the title, before remembering what exactly it was being named. He decided that the boat got exactly the amount of consideration for naming that it deserved.

"Our boat already has a name," he yelled back at the other boat. "We'll help you come up with a name for your boat, if you want!" He looked back to Blake, who had still not moved. "Do you want to help?"

"Not really, no."

"Uhm," Jaune said nervously, "okay, I just thought...you know...I'd ask." After a moment's thought, "are you doing alright, Blake?"

"Yes."

"Are you, uh, sure?" Jaune noticed the Blake had never moved her eyes away from the bottom of the boat. "If there's anything you need, just ask."

"The things I need are not on this boat, Jaune. But thank you for your concern."

"What kind of things?" Jaune asked, digging to find anything he could do for Blake.

"Food. Dry land. Less Water. Much less water."

"Do you not like the ocean, Blake?," Jaune ventured.

"Not particularly fond of it, no."

"Is it," Jaune started, not quite thinking through his next statement, "is it a faunus thing? Like, a cat thing? Cause you have the...the ears..."

"_Jaune._"

"Oh, " Jaune immediately regretted the question, "Sorry, that was..uhm...hehe... Hey Ruby! Did you come up with a name for the boat yet?!"

"No!," Ruby replied, "Pyrrah's really bad at naming things!"

"I'm really trying!," Pyrrah defended herself. "How are you doing, Jaune?!"

"I'm doing fine!," he answered. "Blake is doing," he looked back at Blake, to see that she was giving him a nasty look. "Blake is doing good too!"

"Good!," Pyrrah returned, "I am glad to hear that! Hey, do you have any rope on your boat, by chance?!"

Jaune looked around and saw that Blake was sitting on some rope. He looked back out to Pyrrah, "Yea! We have a bunch of it, why?!"

"I think that you should try and throw it to us, and we could pull our boats together! That way we not have to yell anymore!" Pyrrah had come up with that plan while trying to think of ways to escape. She figured it may not get them rescued, but at least they would be closer together.

"Good thinking Pyrrah!" Jaune looked back down to Blake, "Uh, Blake? Do you think you could had me that rope?"

"..."

"Please?"

"Here."

Jaune was handed the rope by Blake, whose eyes never moved from the bottom of the boat. "Thank you, Blake." He stood back up again, "Alright, get ready Pyrrah; I'm going to throw it to you!"

"Actually Jaune," Pyrrah said, "could you have Blake throw it instead?!"

"Uh," Jaune said, "Blake is...Blake is asleep?!"

"Is she?!," Pyrrah asked in return.

"Yeah," Jaune replied, "She's very asleep! Should I just throw it?!"

"Oh dear." Pyrrah sighed to herself. "Throw it as hard as you can Jaune! Try not to miss!"

Jaune picked of the rope, then readied himself as best he could. "Get ready Pyrrah!" He hoisted the rope behind his head, before tossing it with all his might over the side of the boat. He grunted from the amount of effort, and very nearly fell overboard. Once he recovered, he looked to see if the rope had made it to its destination.

It made it about 4 metres from the boat.

"That was a good try Jaune!," Pyrrah tried sounding encouraging, but the disappointment in her voice rang clear despite her best efforts. "Try again?!"

Jaune was not discouraged by his failed attempt. No, Jaune considered it a learning experience. He knew what went wrong in his first attempt, and he aimed to double his effort in his second attempt bridge the gap between the boats. He steadied himself and swung the rope once again; this time with gusto.

He missed again.

"Blake..." he asked. "Hey Blake, can you help me out a minute?"

"No."

"Come on, do it for Ruby?"

"Ruby is a big girl. She'll be fine."

"Come on," Jaune begged, "wouldn't rather be stuck with Ruby than me? Well, maybe not Ruby, but Pyrrah. I'm sure she wouldn't bother you way less and me and Ruby would, right?"

Blake gave the idea some thought. She figured if she had to deal with this situation for any period of time, she'd rather be doing with someone more competent than Jaune, and less excitable than Ruby. Pyrrah was her best option then.

Reaching a decision, she stood up and grabbed the rope from Jaune. She still made of point of not looking at the water, focusing only on the other boat. Jaune went to give her advice on throwing, only to be turned down by Blake. One quick toss and a few minutes of pulling the rope later, and the boats were now side by side. Blake made sure to quickly switch boats, and was now sitting in the position she had been earlier, only now by Pyrrah's side.

Meanwhile, Jaune and Ruby, who moved over to the SS Boat, were hard at work coming up with a name for the other boat.

"Okay, we can't name it after food. That'll just make us hungry."

"Aww," Ruby pouted, "so the SS Cookies is out?"

"Yea, I guess it is," said Jaune. "What if we named after someone else? Would that be weird?"

"The SS Oobleck?" Ruby suggested.

"Ehh," Jaune thought for a moment. "Maybe that is kinda weird. Why don't we name it after Zwei?"

"We can't name it after Zwei, that's cheating." Ruby pondered names for a while longer, before sighing. "Yang would be able to come up with a name if she were here."

"Yeah, but it would be a pun. Pyrrah, you have any ideas?"

"What?" she asked. "I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Are we still trying to name the boat?"

"Yeah," Ruby answered, "we're not coming up with anything good. This is stupid, we're never gonna get rescued!" Ruby growled, and slid down onto the floor of the boat, pouting.

"Don't say that Ruby," Pyrrah tried encouraging her, "I'm sure it won't be much longer. Certainly our friends will have noticed we're not back yet. Come on, let's name this boat."

"I have nothing," Jaune said, defeated. "And Blake won't help at all."

"Blake? Are you alright?" Pyrrah looked over to the unmoving Blake, concerned that she has said and done almost nothing the entire time they've been adrift. She recalled as they got on the original ship, that Blake seemed slightly off. Eventually connecting the pieces, she asked her, "Blake, are you afraid of the water?"

"I don't exactly love it, no."

Ruby piped in, "Is that why you were so nervous when we got on the ship?"

"Could we not discuss my inherent dislike for large bodies of water?"

Pyrrah crouched down next to Blake and put her hand on her shoulder. "Blake, it's alright to be afraid. We're here for you. Is this a cat thing?"

"..."

"Yeah," Ruby said, "aren't cats afraid of water?"

While the two girls asked these question, Jaune was desperately making gestures to stop at both of them, only to be ignored. The damage had been done, and he slowly retreated to the far end of his boat.

"I hate you all."

After what seemed like ages, an airship came across the horizon, rescuing the four stranded students. When they were all aboard the airship, Yang ran to Ruby and hugged with the intensity of a thousand suns. Ruby struggled to escape, but try as she may, Yang did not concede. The rest of their fellow team-member were aboard the ship as well, which made for a happy reunion.

Down below ship sat the two boats that had they had been stuck in for most the day. However, at the beginning of the day, only one boat had a name. Eventually, Blake did decide to pitch in an idea for the name of that second boat. Now, the both of them had monikers: one was the SS Boat, and the other was newly christened the SS Surrounded by Racists.


End file.
